This Changes Everything - Capitalism vs the Climate

Naomi Klein's international bestseller This Changes Everything is a must-read on our future, one of the defining and most hopeful books of this era.

Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It's not about carbon - it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.

Once a decade, Naomi Klein writes a book that redefines its era. No Logo did so for globalization. The Shock Doctrine changed the way we think about austerity. In This Changes Everything, her most provocative and optimistic book yet, Naomi Klein has upended the debate about the stormy era already upon us, exposing the myths that are clouding the climate debate.

You have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. You have been told it's impossible to get off fossil fuels when in fact we know exactly how to do it - it just requires breaking every rule in the "free-market" playbook. You have also been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge. In fact, all around the world, the fight back is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring.

It's about changing the world, before the world changes so drastically that no one is safe. Either we leap - or we sink. This Changes Everything is a book that will redefine our era.

'The most important book I've read all year - perhaps in a decade ... crucially, she leaves the reader with a sense of optimism' Stephanie Merritt, Observer, Books of the Year

'A book of such ambition and consequence it is almost unreviewable ... The most momentous and contentious environmental book since Silent Spring' Rob Nixon, The New York Times

'Naomi is like a great doctor - she can diagnose problems nobody else sees' Alfonso Cuarón

'Damn right, this changes everything ... one of the greatest nonfiction works of all time ... not just a book. It is a path of survival' D. R. Tucker, Washington Monthly

Reviews

Will be one of the most influential books of our time -- Owen Jones Klein is a brave and passionate writer who always deserves to be heard, and this is a powerful and urgent book -- John Gray Observer Without a doubt one of the most important books of the decade -- Amitav Ghosh Savages the idea that we will be saved by new technologies or by an incremental shift away from fossil fuels... Her solution requires a radical reconfiguration of our economic system New York Times Her task is to take a potential catastrophe of unimaginable reach and to be calm and welcoming, drawing new people in. She does vast amounts of travel and research and thinking, then crafts all of it to the scale of her own voice: the voice of a pleasant, funny, unthreatening-looking woman Guardian I have devoured Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything, the book the world has been waiting for. I urge everyone to read it (especially politicians). It is her most prescient book yet and is a much-needed call to arms as time runs out on climate change -- Cornelia Parker Observer, Books of the Year It's no exaggeration to say This Changes Everything is the most important book I've read all year - perhaps in a decade. Klein sets out the scientific case for urgent action on climate change and argues passionately that our only hope of combating its effects is a revolution in our entire economic system. Crucially, she manages to leave the reader with a degree of optimism -- Stephanie Merritt Observer, Books of the Year [T]he problems - climate change, plus everything that is changing as a result, plus the increasing toxicity of the planet - can no longer be denied. This is a conversation that needs to happen on a large scale, and on a local scale, and on a personal scale, very soon -- Margaret Atwood Guardian, Books of the Year Captured the collective sense of anger and awakening ... [a] frightening look at climate change and capitalism -- Matt Haig Observer, Books of the Year Naomi Klein applies her fine, fierce, and meticulous mind to the greatest, most urgent questions of our times... I count her among the most inspirational political thinkers in the world today -- Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things and Capitalism: A Ghost Story A book of such ambition and consequence it is almost unreviewable ... The most momentous and contentious environmental book since Silent Spring New York Times Book Review Savages the idea that we will be saved by new technologies or by an incremental shift away from fossil fuels... Her solution requires a radical reconfiguration of our economic system New York Times The book has an uplifting message: that humans have changed before, and can change again. It poses a gutsy challenge to those who are vaguely hoping that the whole issue will go away, or that some new technology will save us Sunday Times This may be the first truly honest book ever written about climate change Time Her task is to take a potential catastrophe of unimaginable reach and to be calm and welcoming, drawing new people in. She does vast amounts of travel and research and thinking, then crafts all of it to the scale of her own voice: the voice of a pleasant, funny, unthreatening-looking woman Guardian The proposition that the world's political and economic institutions are preventing us from meeting the lethal challenge of global warming is hardly novel. But Naomi Klein in her new book articulates the case as forcefully and comprehensively as anyone has yet managed Independent Powerfully and uncompromisingly written, the impassioned polemic we have come to expect from Klein, mixing first-hand accounts of events around the world and withering political analysis ... Her stirring vision is nothing less than a political, economic, social, cultural and moral make-over of the human world New Scientist Klein is one of the left's most influential figures and a prominent climate champion... [She] is a gifted writer and there is little doubt about the problem she identifies Financial Times Gripping and dramatic ... [Klein] writes of a decisive battle for the fate of the earth in which we either take back control of the planet from the capitalists who are destroying it or watch it all burn Rolling Stone An energetic exploration of issues surrounding climate change vociferously advocates immediate, radical reforms... The distinctiveness of the book resides... in its immersive reporting (on "Blockadia" eco-movements and futuristic geoengineering proposals) and in Klein's sheer outspokenness New Yorker Klein has, with this book, thoroughly and completely debunked everything promoted under the banner of conservatism today - and she has done so with a work that's more powerful than a stack of C4. This Changes Everything deserves to be viewed not as one of the greatest nonfiction works of the 2010s, but as one of the greatest nonfiction works of all-time. ... This book will expand and intensify the worldwide climate-justice movement, which is why the rhetorical attacks on Klein will become ever more aggressive. It will politically galvanize the young and the vulnerable, who have so much to lose due to the climate crisis. It will create climate leaders across this warming globe. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate is not just a book, not just a moment, not just a movement. It is a weapon of justice. It is a path of survival Washington Monthly [Her] words and knowledge run deep, inspiring change and the need for immediate action -- Charlize Theron Today @NaomiAKlein's new book #ThisChangesEverything is out now - I'm reading it - it's great -- Russell Brand Naomi Klein is a genius. She has done for politics what Jared Diamond did for the study of human history. She skillfully blends politics, economics and history and distills out simple and powerful truths with universal applicability -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The manifesto that the climate movement - and the planet - needs right now... For those with whom her message does resonate - and they are likely to be legion - her book could help catalyze the kind of mass movement she argues the world needs now San Francisco Gate Has the potential to be the definitive account of our current moment... Klein's great gifts have always been synthesizing huge amounts of information and drawing connections between seemingly disparate issues; on those points, This Changes Everything is no different Globe and Mail Meticulously researched and briskly rational in tone, [it] is one of the basic texts of the modern era... an essential purchase in that it tells you precisely what you need to know to discuss the climate dilemma intelligently... This Changes Everything is basic reading and no one will take you seriously until you've read every single page Toronto Star An intellectual hero of many in the alter-globalization protests as well as the Occupy movement... Klein is ready for battle and is not afraid to own her politics Los Angeles Review of Books This is the best book about climate change in a very long time-in large part because it's about much more. It sets the most important crisis in human history in the context of our other ongoing traumas, reminding us just how much the powers-that-be depend on the power of coal, gas and oil. And that in turn should give us hope, because it means the fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a livable one -- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and co-founder of 350.org

Author description

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the #1 international bestsellers The Shock Doctrine and No Logo. She is a member of the board of directors for 350.org, a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute, and a former Miliband Fellow at the LSE. She holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King's College, Nova Scotia.